Miss Me When I'm Gone

chapter 16



Judy called me on Monday while I was on my way to work.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner,” she said. “I don’t check e-mail all that often. Now, did we meet at the funeral?”

“I don’t think so. I’m . . . uh . . . short and pregnant?”

“Oh. I guess I saw you, but we didn’t actually talk. Anyway, I’m happy to help.”

She sounded warm and eager to please, just as Gretchen had described her. After we both stated several times how sorry we were, I started to ask her about all of the time Gretchen had been spending in Emerson lately.

“Oh, quite a bit. She usually stayed with Dorothy. I mean, her great-aunt Dorothy—Linda and Shelly’s mom’s sister. Spent a lot of time at all the local spots—the doughnut shop and Randy’s Dogs and the playground.”

“I see. Uh, Randy’s Hot Dogs . . . that’s where she met this Mr. Keith . . . Mr. Keith . . . um, I don’t know his last name, but he was one of Shelly’s boyfriends?”

Judy hesitated. I wondered if I’d made a mistake. She sounded approachable, but I was probably jumping into the personal details a little too quickly.

“She told you about that?” Judy asked.

“Well. No.” I struggled to keep my phone at my ear as I turned on my blinker. “I read about it. I haven’t read all of her work—it’s kind of a mess. But I did read a little about Keith.”

“Oh. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Of course she wrote about him.”

“I read about her first meeting with him, but . . .” I stopped at a red light. “But I’m not finding any writing about what happened with that. If they did a test after that, she didn’t write about it. As far as I can tell yet.”

“Oh, dear.” Judy paused again. “Well, I know that Keith’s test turned out negative. Gretchen didn’t share that with me, but I heard it from my friend Nancy, who happens to be very close to Keith’s wife. It wasn’t a shock to me. It had really seemed fifty-fifty, back then. But I think Gretchen was thrown for a loop. I think maybe we’d given her the idea that he was likely the one. Or it was that when she met him, she liked him. So she got attached to the idea that it was him. Maybe she didn’t know what to write when it didn’t turn out how she wanted?”

“Maybe,” I said. “And what happened after she found out it wasn’t him? I mean, writing aside, what did she do next? Did she move on to the other guy?”

“Well, I know that the next logical step was to go after Bruce. But she never talked about doing that. Or talked about it at all. It was like she was embarrassed how things worked out with Keith and didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Maybe started to think it was a bad idea. Or maybe, now that it was certain to be Bruce, she was afraid of meeting him and disliking him. I felt like the experience with Keith maybe soured her on the whole thing.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

The driver behind me honked, and I stepped on the gas.

“I’m not sure. She wasn’t as . . . gung ho . . . when she found out about Keith. She got a lot quieter about the father issue. Didn’t ask me and Diane and Dorothy about it so much after that. At least, not me and Diane. Maybe Dorothy. She was closer to her.”

“I see. Did you know Bruce at all?” I asked.

Judy let out a long breath. “Um . . . not all that well. Diane knew him a little better. You may want to ask her about him.”

“I see. Well, anyway, it feels like the story sort of stops after Keith. At least, the part about trying to find who the biological father was.”

“Hmm. Not a huge surprise. To be honest, I wasn’t sure about what she was doing, writing about all of that. It seemed like it could be . . . harmful. Maybe she started to feel that way herself.” Judy sighed. “You know, you really ought to come up here and talk with Gretchen’s aunt Dorothy. She and Gretchen were getting pretty close during this whole thing. Dorothy’s devastated, of course. But she’s getting better by the day, and I’m sure she’d love to meet you—a friend of Gretchen’s. I think it might be a comfort to her to know you’re handling her work . . . that you care enough to do that for Gretchen.”

“Of course,” I said. “Well, if you don’t think it would be too much of an imposition on Dorothy, I’d love to go up and talk with her.”

“She’s in her eighties, but she’s quite sharp. You can’t contact her on e-mail or anything. But I drop in on her every few days. How about I mention it to her, so you don’t have to call her cold? That’d be better, because she’s a little hard of hearing, and if she doesn’t immediately recognize your voice, she’ll think you’re selling something and hang up. She’s done that to me before.”

“Um . . . okay,” I said, turning into the newspaper parking lot.

“Yeah. That’s what I’ll do. And I’ll call you back. If you’re coming up here, you and I can talk a little more in person, too. If you’d like.”

“Sure,” I said.

“You let me know when you’d want to make the trip.”

“How about next weekend? Saturday?”

“That should work,” Judy said. “But I’ll check with Dorothy.”

“Sure. Okay.”

After we’d hung up, I stared up at the brown brick of the newspaper building, with its neat rows of black windows. I remembered how I used to arrive in this parking lot in the late afternoons and evenings the first couple of years I was a reporter—always armed with a notebook and eager to pound out a story for the deadline. Or to get on the phone and ask a few more questions. Back then, it never used to cross my mind to linger in my car, or to dread going inside.



When I got home that night, I greeted my half-conscious husband with a peck on the cheek and then went rummaging through Gretchen’s notebooks again, scanning for the name “Bruce” and words like DNA or paternity—just as I’d done with the Word file searches.

About three notebooks in, I came across a bright green plastic folder, unlabeled. It didn’t contain Gretchen’s usual Times New Roman printouts.

The first paper inside said Emerson Police Department at the top, followed by a bunch of boxes filled out by hand: a few inexplicable numbers, then an address (78 Durham Road, Emerson) and a date (3/10/85).

This was the police report from the day Shelly was killed. I skipped down to the narrative section.



At approximately 0825 hours, Officer James Dolan and Officer Nicolas Valenti responded to a call about a domestic incident and a gravely injured female at 78 Durham Road, home of Shelly Brewer and Frank Grippo.

We were met in the driveway by Laurie Wiley, who had placed one of the two 911 calls received by dispatch regarding this incident. She led us into the house, explaining that she had awoken to Frank Grippo’s screams earlier in the morning. When she’d rushed outside, Grippo was already in his yard, screaming that someone had beaten Ms. Brewer and she needed an ambulance. According to Ms. Wiley, Mr. Grippo claimed to have discovered Ms. Brewer when he arrived home from a friend’s house. After encountering Ms. Wiley, Mr. Grippo rushed to 90 Durham Road to request the assistance of Dr. George Skinner while Ms. Wiley called 911. (Mr. Grippo also called 911 upon returning to his home with the doctor.)

When we entered the house, we found Shelly Brewer on the living room floor, with large amounts of blood surrounding her on the carpet. She was not conscious. Her head injury was wrapped in towels and Dr. Skinner was speaking softly to her, pressuring a wound on the side of her head. Officer Dolan requested Crime Scene to respond to the location.

Frank Grippo was also present in the room. He was yelling at Dr. Skinner to do something. Mr. Grippo also stated that he was going to kill the person who did this to his girlfriend. Officer Valenti stayed with Ms. Brewer and Dr. Skinner while Officer Dolan brought Mr. Grippo into the kitchen in an attempt to calm him and ask him what had happened. Mr. Grippo said that he had come home at approximately 8:10 A.M. to find Shelly lying unconscious in her blood. He attempted to wake her but was unsuccessful. He had wrapped her head tightly with a tablecloth but then run to his neighbor, Dr. Skinner, for assistance.

Shortly after our arrival, at approximately 0835 hours, ambulance 42 arrived, which removed Ms. Brewer from the scene and transported her to St. Theresa’s Hospital.

At this point, Mr. Grippo became violent, slamming cabinets and throwing dishes around the kitchen. Officer Dolan attempted to subdue Mr. Grippo verbally and Officer Valenti called for backup, as well as his supervisor, asking that he contact the New Hampshire Crime Scene Investigation Unit.

Officer Valenti then began to secure the crime scene by requesting Dr. Skinner to exit the house and wait in the driveway. Officer Valenti then assisted Officer Dolan in the kitchen, telling Grippo that they would have to remove him from the house in handcuffs if he did not leave the home willingly. Grippo complied. Officer Valenti began to question him outdoors while Officer Dolan began securing the home with tape.

The details were unsettling. It hadn’t felt real—this murder of Gretchen’s biological mother, so many years ago—when Gretchen mentioned it offhand, as if it had been nothing. I wondered how many of these details she knew before she’d started researching.

The police report was followed by a series of newspaper articles from 1985 and 1986, describing Frank Grippo’s arrest and trial and finally his acquittal. Shelly had died shortly after she arrived at the hospital, and Grippo was charged with her murder soon afterward. The final article summed up the case:





LACONIA DAILY NEWS

April 24, 1986

VERDICT DUE TODAY IN EMERSON MURDER TRIAL

LACONIA, NH - After four days of testimony in district court, jurors are expected to deliver a verdict later today in the murder trial of Frank Grippo, 29, of Emerson.

According to prosecutors, Grippo brutally killed his girlfriend, Shelly Brewer, 24, last March 10, 1985. Grippo claims that he returned home at approximately eight o’clock that morning, after a night of drinking, to find Brewer already bludgeoned by her own clothes iron, but still alive. He immediately contacted a doctor in the neighborhood and called 911.

The case for the prosecution rests on witness testimony that Grippo arrived home at least two hours earlier than he had told police, and that he and Brewer had been fighting over an alleged affair she had been having. Prosecutors have also focused on the testimony of Dr. George Skinner, who said he heard Brewer make statements implicating Grippo in her final moments. They’ve also highlighted a suspicious roll of $3,000 in cash that police found in Grippo’s pocket that morning.

The defense has argued that Grippo couldn’t have killed Brewer because he was at a friend’s house when she was attacked. And they have also stressed a lack of physical evidence against Grippo, and sought to establish that Brewer had several other enemies who had motive to hurt her.

Key elements of testimony:



•Arguments & Infidelity – Neighbors and friends testified that Grippo and Brewer had been fighting in the weeks leading to Brewer’s death, and several of them suspected domestic violence. Two of her friends testified that she was seeing Phil Coleman, a pharmacist for whom she worked at the time of her death. And three of Grippo’s coworkers told the court that he complained angrily about Brewer’s alleged affair.

•Grippo’s Alibi – Two of Frank Grippo’s friends, Bill Carnell and Steven Beaudette, testified that he was with them the night before the murder. Two patrons of the bar they attended and a waitress confirmed that he had been there until 2 A.M. Grippo then passed out on Carnell’s couch, and Carnell’s wife, Patty, testified that she saw him leave just before 8 A.M. But Brewer’s friend and neighbor Diane Skinner (daughter of Dr. Skinner) testified that she saw Grippo’s car in Brewer’s driveway shortly after 5:45 A.M. during her morning jog. A twelve-year-old paperboy also reported to police that he saw Grippo’s parked car at approximately 7 A.M.

•Crime Scene – Forensic detectives and the coroner concluded that Brewer was killed due to several strikes to the head made by her own clothes iron. The assailant had apparently wiped the weapon clean before leaving it on the kitchen counter. Additionally, police found trace amounts of the victim’s blood in the bathroom sink, suggesting that the assailant had cleaned up after himself before leaving the house.

•Brewer’s Final Words – Dr. Skinner, who arrived at the scene shortly before the police, testified that while he was attempting to stop Brewer’s bleeding, she said to Grippo, “I can’t forgive you. I can’t.” The prosecution argued that this statement indicated Grippo’s guilt.

•Other Suspects? – The defense argued that Brewer had several enemies who could’ve been responsible for her death. Her friend Melanie Rittel testified that around 1981 Brewer had developed a cocaine habit. She owed a great deal of money to one particular dealer with whom she’d had a sexual relationship, and indicated she had been worried about him coming after her, Rittel said. She also described three other failed relationships Brewer had with men in the last five years, two of whom were married. Meanwhile, detectives found fingerprints on the kitchen counter and bathroom sink and doorknob that did not match Brewer’s, Grippo’s, Dr. Skinner’s—or those of anyone else who had been known to be in her house in the preceding days.

•Roll of Cash – Throughout the trial, the prosecution raised questions about the $3,000 police found in Grippo’s pocket—wadded in a roll and fastened with a hair elastic. Grippo claimed that he had seen the cash on Brewer’s front hall table when he’d first entered her house that morning. He testified that he called out to Brewer, asking where the money had come from, and when he received no answer, he walked into the house to find her bleeding on the living room carpet. At that point he rushed to attend to her and did not recall putting the money in his pocket. The prosecution suggested that Grippo was intending to flee after killing Brewer. The defense argued that the money indicated some foul play on someone else’s part, perhaps someone who owed Brewer money or someone who came to Brewer demanding a larger sum, and beat her when she couldn’t offer more.

I closed the folder. How much of this had Gretchen known for years? I wondered. Had anything in this report shocked her? How much had she learned just recently? And what did she think happened? None of her writing so far gave much indication.